THOMAS EDISON
• Thomas Edison had three months of schooling, which ended when he heard the teacher telling the inspector that he was addled. When he told his mom, it made her so mad that she told the teacher off and took him out of school. In spite of the lack of education, Edison patented over 1,000 inventions in his lifetime, averaging one new patent every two weeks during his adult life. In one four-year period, he averaged one patent every 5 days.
• The condor is the largest flying land bird in the Western Hemisphere -- and one of the slowest in reproducing. The female lays only one egg every two years. • Scotsman John Paul Jones is • Those who study such things best known for his naval exclaim that Napoleon Bonapar- ploits for the nascent United States during the Revolutionte was afraid of cats. • Confectioner Milton Hershey ary War, and for his infamous suffered through founding two utterance, "We have not yet candy companies that ended begun to fight!" Most people in failure, then succeeded on don't realize, though, that he his third attempt, and finally was born John Paul and only sold that company and used adopted the surname "Jones" the proceeds to found the Her- on his first trip to America, shey Company. After all his where he came to flee charges hard work, though, he seemed in the deaths of two sailors unto be less interested in enjoy- der his command. ing the fruits of his labors than in helping others. In 1909 he established the Hershey Industrial School for Orphaned Boys, and 10 years later he donated control of the company
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• In 1878 Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for the phonograph. He used a small metal cylinder covered with tin foil. He originally envisioned it as a business machine for dictation. This infuriated stenographers because they feared being put out of work. At first there was no way of duplicating the cylinders and performers had to repeat their renditions over and over in front of as many phonograph machines as could fit in the room.
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• Don't consider yourself uneducated if you've never heard of anthropodermic bibliopegy; the practice of binding books with human skin is not (one can hope) common in modern times.
• The first invention he ever tried to sell was an electric vote-recording machine. He tried to sell it to Congress, but was refused. When a congressional vote was taken orally, it took 45 minutes, which gave congressmen plenty of time to trade votes. A faster method of voting would cut down on the vote trading.
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to a trust for the school. Today the institution is called the Milton Hershey School, and it continues to have a controlling interest in the candy company.
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• It was American author and critic H.L. Mencken who made the following sage observation: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats."
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• Edison arrived penniless in New York City at the age of 22. He persuaded a friend to let him sleep in the office of the Gold Indicator Co., a stock-ticker firm. When the stock ticker broke down, Edison repaired it after everyone else failed. He improved the design, and when the president of the company asked him how much he wanted for the patents, he couldn't decide whether to ask for $5,000 or $3,000, so he said, "How much are you offering?" and the president said, "How would $40,000 strike you?" whereupon Edison replied, "Yes, I think that will be fair." He used the money to open his a workshop and begin his inventing career.